Story+1976-09-30+Santa+Monica,+CA

“I grew up in this small town, it was about twenty miles inland from the shore, about…ten thousand people…we lived in this two-family house and, uh…my mom, she worked, she was a secretary…went to work there soon as she got out of the school…still working now…she worked downtown in one of them big office buildings and my Pop, he, he was a guard at the jail for a while and then he worked in, worked in this rug mill, they had this big rug mill in town, it used to employ a lot of people till it went out of business and closed down… then my Pop worked for the Pinkerton, Pinkerton guards for a while …he was off a lot…he was home a lot…we used to live in this two-family house next door to this…this truck driver (?) from down south, his name was Burt…and a wife named Gloria…all I remember every night my Pop shutting off all the lights in the house and sitting in the kitchen, drinking beer, smoking cigarettes, my mom sitting on the stairs with her ear next to the wall listening, listening, listening to them two fight each other on the other side of the house…(?) front porch…I remember Burt came home one day, he came home with, uh…I’d never seen before (?) one of those, those wind chimes, the place was falling down, the house was wrecked… and he came home and he had these wind chimes and he, he tied ‘em up on the front porch…I remember I’d be lying in my bed at night and they’d be fighting with each other and I’d just hear them things tinkling on…tinkling through the screen door…so I used to… soon as I hit sixteen, I used to take off to the city, spend some time in New York, I met a few people up there, you know (crowd cheers) used to go to the Village a lot, you know…but pretty soon the money would run out…or I’d get caught sitting around at Port Authority and the cops would come down and call my Pop…put me on the bus…so I used to, I always used to have to, always used to have to go back and I knew that every time, every time I went back to that house, my father would be sitting there in the kitchen with all the lights out just waiting for me…so I’d come down the street and I’d stand there in the driveway and…he used to lock up the front door so that I couldn’t come in that way so I’d stand there in that driveway and I could see the light of his cigarette through the screen door…pretty soon I’d slick my hair back real tight, step up on the porch, hope I could slip by him before…before he’d stop me…and he used to, he used to wait and he’d wait, he’d wait till I got through the living room and he’d wait till I hit that, that top step and then I’d hear him calling my name to come back and sit down in the dark at the kitchen table…we’d sit there in the dark…I can remember I…I could always, I could always hear his voice but I could never see his face…he’d talk to me about nothing…what was going on, how I was doing in school…pretty soon he’d ask me where I’d been, where I was getting my money from…who I’d been hanging out with…pretty soon we’d be fighting with each other and my mother, she’d be running in from the front room to try to pull him off me, to try to…try to keep us apart and I’d end up screaming …running out the back door screaming, telling him how, how…it was my life and I could do whatever I wanted to do (crowd cheers) …”
 * 30.09.76 Santa Monica, CA, intro to “It’s My Life”**

“A buddy of mine who I’ve known as long as I, as I can remember (?) California…so…this is for him…”
 * 30.09.76 Santa Monica, CA, intro to “Thunder Road”**

“About twenty years ago…(?)…McDaniel discovered a beat that was in the heart of the universe…he traced it back…and he found out that it came…it resonated from the deepest…darkest…part of the country…somewhere off Route 22…in New Jersey (crowd cheers)…”
 * 30.09.76 Santa Monica, CA, intro to “She’s the One”**

“Here’s a song…that’s gonna be on our new album…which…there will be…as soon as I…I’m taking my course in, in show business (laughter from the crowd)(?)…(someone in the crowd: “Somewhere in the Night!”) this is called “Something in the Night,” yes…there’s a street, a street like…I guess it’s the Sunset Boulevard of Asbury Park (chuckles)(crowd cheers) it’s called, it’s called Kingsley Avenue, there’s Kingsley and Ocean Avenue, they make this big oval…”
 * 30.09.76 Santa Monica, CA, intro to “Something in the Night”**

“Waiting for you, Baby…still waiting for you, Baby…waiting for you, Baby…waiting for you, Baby…you know I’m waiting for you…(?) waiting for you…you know I’m waiting for you…you know I’m waiting for you…you know I’m waiting…together…//hiding on the backstreets…//”
 * 30.09.76 Santa Monica, CA, middle of “Backstreets”**

“A big day…when I was (?) in the tunnel in New York to go audition for a big record company…I get to the CBS building…with my manager, my lawyer…we get in the audition elevator…a special elevator marked “X”…we shoot up to the clouds…passing the stars, passing all the planets…we finally get up…the doors open up…they frisk me a few of times (laughter from the crowd)…and there at this big, solid gold desk, in a long, white robe, with a little wreath around his head was Clive Davis (crowd cheers) and he had angels taking notes and flying all around…I said “Mr. Davis…I wanna be a rock’n’roll star” (crowd cheers) but first he heard my confession… and he said…”Sign here”…and I put my name on that line and then …”
 * 30.09.76 Santa Monica, CA, middle of “Growin’ Up”**

“I wanna thank everybody that, that, that’s come down here over the last two nights (crowd cheers) we’re having such a, such a, such a nice welcome back to L.A, you know (crowd cheers)… anyway, this is to you from Asbury Park with love (crowd cheers)…”
 * 30.09.76 Santa Monica, CA, intro to “Sandy”**

“Stand back, ladies and gentlemen (?) the Miami Horns are gonna help us out on this next tune…(?) please…just…raise your hand (crowd cheers)…”
 * 30.09.76 Santa Monica, CA, intro to “Raise Your Hand”**

“Here’s something that’ll be on the new album…I wanna thank everybody ‘cause sometimes…uh, you just sit around at home and you don’t know what you’re doing and you come out, you know, like this and, uh…it feels good (?)(crowd cheers) well, this is called …this is called, this is something called “The Promise”…”
 * 30.09.76 Santa Monica, CA, intro to “The Promise”**

//Compiled by Johanna Pirttijärvi//